
Phoebe Wahl is an award-winning children’s book author, illustrator, and surface designer.
Her work focuses on themes of comfort, nostalgia, and intimacy with nature and one another.
She grew up unschooled and credits her free-range childhood in the Northwest for much of her inspiration and work ethic.
Phoebe graduated from Rhode Island School of Design in 2013 with a BFA in illustration. Her first children’s book, Sonya’s Chickens (Tundra), was the recipient of the Ezra Jack Keats Book Award for new illustrator. Her other titles include Backyard Fairies (Knopf/Tundra), Paper Mice (Simon & Schuster, written by Megan Wagner Lloyd), The Blue House (Knopf/Tundra), and Little Witch Hazel (Tundra). Phoebe lives in Bellingham, Washington.
ESMÉ SHAPIRO grew up in Laurel Canyon, California and Ontario, Canada. Currently she and her dog, Chebini Brown, split their time between Brooklyn and New York’s Hudson Valley. A graduate of The Rhode Island School of Design, Esmé is a past recipient of both the Nancy Lee Rhodes Roberts Scholarship and The SILA West 53 Gold Award-Phillip Hayes Scholarship. She has exhibited at The Society of Illustrators and her work has been featured in Taproot and Plansponsor magazines. Ooko is her very first picture book.